Palestinians Topple Gaza Wall and Cross to Egypt

The Palestinian group Hamas destroyed a portion of the wall dividing Egypt and Gaza, which has been under a blockade.Credit
Kevin Frayer/Associated Press

RAFAH, Egypt — Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into northern Egypt on Wednesday after Hamas militants blew up parts of the fence dividing Egypt from the Gaza Strip, forcing an end to the closing of Gaza that had followed Hamas’s takeover of the territory last summer.

On foot, bicycle, donkey cart and pickup truck, Gazans crossed the border for a buying spree of medicine, cement, sheep, Coca-Cola, gasoline, soap, Cleopatra and Malimbo cigarettes, satellite dishes and countless other supplies that have been cut off, especially in recent days during a complete blockade by Israel after rocket attacks from Gaza.

From the breach of the border wall before dawn until well into the evening, Palestinians crossed from Rafah in Gaza to Rafah in Egypt — the city has been divided by the border since 1982, when Egypt accepted the return of Sinai from Israel but declined to take back Gaza as well.

While the destruction of the fence was an act of defiance by Hamas against Israel, which wants Gaza isolated, and against Egypt, which sealed the border to keep Palestinians out, officials from both countries suggested that what happened here on Wednesday was not all bad.

“I told them: ‘Let them come in to eat and buy food, then they go back, as long as they are not carrying weapons,’ ” President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt told reporters at a book fair in Cairo. This came after his forces had pushed back protesting women from the Rafah crossing on Tuesday.

For their part, Israeli officials said that, if controlled, the border opening to Egypt might allow Israel to lock the door to a Hamas-run Gaza and let the Egyptians handle the poverty and problems of the 1.5 million people there.

Mr. Mubarak urged Hamas to get together with its rival party, Fatah, saying: “If we speak to one Palestinian party we find the other party gets angry. If we ask them to negotiate without preconditions, some of them get angry. There are many problems between them, but I do not want to get into the details.”

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Credit
The New York Times

The prospect of an open border with Egypt was widely accepted as a victory for Hamas and another embarrassment for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who leads Fatah and is seen as a partner with Israel and the United States and complicit in the closing of Gaza.

Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, refused in an interview to take direct responsibility for ordering the Egyptian border opened, but said: “We are creating facts. We have to try to change the situation, and now we await the results.”

With the crossings to Israel closed and minimal goods coming in, Mr. Zahar said: “Rafah is our only lung. If Rafah remains shut, it means our acceptance to be strangled, our acceptance to die. We warned the Egyptians yesterday that people are hungry and dying.” Sometimes, he acknowledged, it was necessary to create a crisis to settle another one.

It was clear that Hamas, pressed by the closing from Israel, which had produced international protests, decided to push the issue with Egypt. Muhammad Mishlahad broke down nearly a half-mile of massive concrete blocks with his big Effer crane. “I got a call from Hamas at 6 a.m. this morning and they said they had a job for me,” Mr. Mishlahad said, nearly giddy with the thrill of the day. “They asked me to come and clear the barrier.” Asked if he was afraid, he laughed and said: “Why should we be afraid? This is our state.”

In Cairo, analysts said that the situation was delicate for the Egyptian authorities. “It is a dilemma for Egypt,” said Emad Gad, an analyst at the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “If it prevents Palestinian civilians from crossing and confronts them with force, it opens itself up to unlimited public scrutiny at home. And if it lets the Palestinians through, they face the risk of not knowing who or what is coming in and criticism from Israel and the United States.”

Here in Rafah, relatives from both sides met, as did business partners who usually smuggle goods through tunnels from Egypt to Gaza. For one day at least, and probably longer, no tunnels were necessary, and Egyptian businessmen brought in goods to sell from the more distant town of El Arish. Some enterprising Gazans ordered goods from Cairo in the morning and went across to Rafah to pick them up at noon.

Farid Abu Jabara, 45, who helps to run a Swedish foundation for Gaza’s handicapped, picked up 50 air mattresses and their pumps, which he had ordered at his own initiative from Cairo at 7 a.m.

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Palestinians climbed over a section of the wall at Rafah that had been torn down Wednesday morning on orders from Hamas.Credit
Ali Ali/European Pressphoto Agency

Muhammad Mowab, 22, a student and barber, bought a cartload of cement for $5.40 a bag, compared with $81 now in Gaza, where Israel has banned importing cement except for specific humanitarian projects. “I’ve been waiting a year to get married, so I can build a house,” he said, then laughed. “Now there are no more excuses.”

A senior Israeli official, refusing to give his name because the minister who heads his department is away, said the development might solve a problem.

“This may be a blessing in disguise,” he said. “On the level of smuggling, weapons and so on, it makes no difference. But if it continues like this, it will ease tremendously the pressure on Israel on the humanitarian level. The humanitarian organizations will get off our backs. There won’t be any shortages. So that is a good thing. We don’t care if people buy food in Egypt. And terrorists come in anyway.

“Second — there’s a notion that Barak believes in — and I think Sharon did too — of getting out of Gaza, and throwing away the keys,” he said, referring to Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Another Israeli official said of the border: “Instead of being unofficially open, it will now be officially open. We are starting to talk about it. Some people in the Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry and prime minister’s office are very happy with this. They are saying, ‘At last, the disengagement is beginning to work.’ ”

Fatan Hessin, 45, met a childhood friend, Inshira Hamdal, for the first time in years. “A few months ago I thought I would never see her again,” Mrs. Hessin said. “We are so tired of this life in Gaza — closure, unemployment, poverty, violence.” She came to buy a large bag of flour — $64.50 in Gaza now, and only $17.50 here — and wished she had money to buy more.

“We thank Hamas for this,” Mrs. Hessin said, holding on to Mrs. Hamdal’s hand. “I’m a Palestinian, not Fatah or Hamas. But I thank Hamas. This is the best thing they have done.”

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Palestinians who had crossed into Egypt brought livestock, among other goods, back into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.Credit
Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

In Gaza, Mr. Zahar and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya called for an urgent meeting with Egypt to work out a new shared arrangement for Gaza’s border crossings. Mr. Haniya suggested that Hamas would be prepared to cede some control to Mr. Abbas, saying, “We don’t want to be the only ones in control of these matters.”

Mr. Zahar, however, said that Hamas and Egypt should meet to discuss the border as well, saying that Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinian Authority. “We don’t want chaos on the border,” he said. “We can patrol our side. We want to keep out criminals and drug traffickers.” But he emphasized that Hamas saw Gaza and the West Bank as a single state.

Mr. Abbas’s appointed government in the West Bank denounced Mr. Haniya’s suggestion. Ashraf Ajrami, a cabinet minister, said that Mr. Haniya was ignoring Mr. Abbas’s demand that it return Gaza to his control. “Everything Haniya is saying is simply to exploit this situation to win political gains,” he said.

Gazans of all classes walked into Egypt, their numbers limited only by the dire shortage of gasoline. Ala Shawa and his wife, Hana, her hair fashionably streaked, walked through the dirt streets of the Egyptian side. “I’m bringing my wife to have a vacation,” Mr. Shawa joked, after months of being unable to travel from Gaza.

Mrs. Shawa said: “I’m here to buy chocolate and Coke for my kids, who are at school. I want to bring my kids to El Arish beach.” Then she said, “This is the best thing Hamas has ever done.”

Ahlan Ashour, 38, came with his wife to visit the Egyptian family, the Barhoums, who had put them up for 24 days during an earlier period when the Rafah crossing was shut. Mr. Ashour’s wife, Mohsin Elloulu, said she was struck by how much poorer the Egyptians of Rafah are. “At least our streets are paved,” she said of Gaza. The current lack of electricity and supplies is terrible, she said. “But materially, we’re so much more advanced in Gaza.” A driver here, she said, makes less than $1.50 a day, and in normal times in Gaza, $27. “But nothing is normal now,” she said.

Ismail, a 26-year-old Egyptian, was selling bars of soap and packets of washing powder for clothes, making a profit of 33 percent over the normal Egyptian price. “We are very clear about deceiving the Palestinians,” he said with a laugh. “We need to live, too.”

Hanan Bissisou, 55, wore a sweater emblazoned, “Now or Never.” He was buying cigarettes and a list of medications for his mother-in-law for her blood pressure and kidney problems. Top of the list were antacids, which are no longer available in Gaza.

A young man brushed by, burdened with suitcases. The man, Muhammad Abu Qassem, 23, has a place at Petra University in Jordan but was unable to get out of Gaza. He was woken by his father before dawn. “He told me to go,” Mr. Qassem said. He showed his visa, airline tickets and entrance certificate. “I hope they let me fly from Cairo,” he said.

Correction: January 26, 2008

Because of an editing error, a front-page article on Thursday about the entry of tens of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt after Hamas militants destroyed part of a fence at the border with Gaza described incompletely the events regarding Gaza and Egypt three decades ago. In that era, Egypt accepted the return of Sinai from Israel but declined to take back Gaza, not just the Gazan half of the border city of Rafah. The article also misstated, in some editions, the location of the border. It separates Gaza from northern Egypt, not southern Egypt.